The control group should still be sleep deprived for 6 months and see what that does to their brain.
As a father of a newborn never have I ever seen an HN comment so incisive and to the point.
As the father of a 9-year-old I have to warn you: the sleep deprivation does not end at 6 months.
As a father of multiple kids younger than that, I have a very different experience.<p>I’m sorry you’re going through this, but I’m slightly taken aback by this comment because this isn’t a common feature of having older children. The only parents I know having sleep deprivation problems have very young children. I have a lot of parent friends and I’ve never heard anyone claim that sleep deprivation continued until older ages, let alone that it’s common.
As a father of three, ages 4, 5.88, and 9 I can concur that the sleep deprivation doesn't improve much. Especially if they are neurodivergent.
Congrats and guard your sleep hygiene as much as possible (practically impossible advice to follow in most cases).<p>I went through a really rough period because of the lack of sleep. I noticed that hydration during that period was also challenging, so I wonder if this is related to the brain shrink effect.<p><a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323595" rel="nofollow">https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323595</a>
Without all the oxytocin you get from hanging out with a newborn that would be awful
Why? Isn’t sleep deprivation a consequence of having a child?
They should be sleep deprived the same way for it to be a real control group, at least in the context of "becoming a father". Otherwise it's just "being sleep deprived for 6-12 months has X effect", which is much less informative. We already know being sleep deprived for long stretches is really bad.
I'd need to read the actual paper, but isn't poor sleep also correlated with "shrinkage" in the brain? And when you have a baby, sleep is one of those things that you don't typically get enough, or high enough quality, of.
Typical sensationalist title that is both reductive and nonsensical. I’m not sure if this is the study they’re referencing [1] but there are two parts that are worth quoting:<p>> Although cortical reductions sometimes reflect a process of neurodegeneration, they can also be a sign of refinement and specialization of neural circuits. Adolescence, for instance, is a life period characterized by the continued elimination of redundant synapses (i.e. synaptic pruning) which parallels cognitive and emotional development (Selemon 2013). In the context of the transition to parent-hood, several examples across human and non-human mammals show functional improvements after reductions in brain markers (Pawluski et al. 2022).<p>And:<p>> Although we found converging evidence of cortical reductions
across the two samples, a number of divergent findings also emerged. First, when disentangling the cortical volume reduction, Californian fathers displayed significant reductions in area and Spanish fathers in thickness. Changes in the area may reflect changes in the number of cells located between radial columns of the brain, while changes in thickness may reflect changes in the number of cells within ontogenic columns (Petanjek et al. 2011). Secondly, the volume of the dorsal attentional network, which supports goal-directed attention, was significantly reduced in Spanish fathers, while it did not show significant changes in Californian fathers. Combined with the default mode network,
this network may control sustained attention (Spreng et al. 2010, 2013), a behavior that is often required during childrearing. It is possible that these inconsistent results at the statistical level
may be due to the different scan timing windows or to cultural or behavioral differences. For example, due to more generous paternity leave policies in Spain<p>1: <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/33/7/4156/6691667" rel="nofollow">https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/33/7/4156/6691667</a>
Indeed I dont daydream anymore.<p>Wonder if these changes are more like jettisoning luxuries rather than getting dumber.
Father of a ten year old here; I definitely still daydream, and I think I did for most of the time I've been a father - but it's genuinely difficult to remember that sort of thing.
The brain switching away from "explore" mode.
I mostly stopped daydreaming at some point in my 20s too, after a fairly intense daydreaming life until then. Oh, and no kids yet :) so it could just be "life"
I wonder what people mean when they talk about daydreaming? I think perhaps it's an experience I don't have, or perhaps constantly have? I have pretty strong and untreated inattentive type ADHD so maybe my whole life is a daydream.<p>When you say you don't daydream, you mean you don't think about non task related things? How do you experience daydreams? Is it a nonvoluntary thing or is it more like actually going to sleep - deliberately entering a contemplative state where your mind wanders?
more flawed[1] don't-have-kids "science" but then they complain about demographics.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47986349">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47986349</a>
<a href="https://archive.is/7LHeN" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/7LHeN</a><p>("This is your brain on kids!")
For women: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0d59e7wjlo" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0d59e7wjlo</a>
Evolution packed us full of control mechanisms that work against us (the individual) but in favor of the group.
It needs a (2002) and it is behind a paywall.